Bridges, Bugs and Pet Lizards

I have been forbidden to use the kitchen sink. That’s where our new friend Larry lives and we NEED Larry to be comfortable so he will stay and eat all of the bugs in our cabina.

If there is one thing we could change about our cabina it would be the bugs. We have bugs of all shapes and sizes from June bugs and beetles to moths, spiders and fruit flies- and they are everywhere. The windows here do not have screens so the bugs come and go as they please. We try to do little things to prevent too many from getting in- we close the windows at night when we have lights on, we don’t keep any food out or on the counters, things like that. But it doesn’t matter- those bugs are intrepid souls! We had pretty much resigned ourselves to a bug filled existence for the month- until this morning when our new friend Larry the Lizard turned up in our kitchen sink! Hopefully our new lizard friend will stay for a while and enjoy this smorgasbord of tasty insects we have for him!

Living in the jungle certainly has its own set of problems, the bugs are the biggest issue, but we also have to contend with varying water pressure (in that, sometimes we have it and sometimes we do not- when we do not, we call the main house and they walk up the line to see what the hold-up is!) and during storms we have to unplug all of our electronics, including the modem and the phone so they do not get fried.

However, we would not change our plan at all- Monteverde is incredibly beautiful and so full of life! This is evident even from our own front porch, but it becomes doubly so in the cloud forest. We ventured up to the cloud forest yesterday with Aunt Pant and Beth. A taxi picked us up at the pulperia near our cabina and took us up, up, up to an adventure park in the cloud forest. We went on a hike through the forest and over suspension bridges overlooking the forest. The suspension bridges were a trip- they moved and swayed in the wind and from the weight of the people walking across them. The bridges varied in length and height, one was 774ft long and 164ft in the air. The height wasn’t a problem as long as we were in the trees. The trees had so much foliage and moss growing on them that it was impossible to see the ground, so we had no concept of how high we were, but once we got into open areas without the trees to shield our view, it got a little scarier. Looking down made my feet tingle!

 

Our tour consisted of the 4 of us, a couple of girls (one from Colorado!) and a family with two young girls from California. The two little girls loved bugs and mushrooms, so our guide pointed them out every chance he got. Our first bug encounter came seconds from the start of our hike- a stick bug flew right in front of us, it was very pretty and smelled like ginger and lemon (weird, right?!?) but we were informed by our guide that it was a pest and would eat all the plants in the area. We saw numerous other plants and animals:

• We saw a vine that grows up trees that has an unusual defense mechanism- its leaves grow to look like they have been eaten, so bugs and other things that eat leaves take one look at it and think “nah, this one has already been munched on and if it was any good there wouldn’t be so much left” and leave it alone! This provides another advantage- as the vine grows higher, the leaves have more holes, this allows the leaves growing below to get more sunlight.
• Our guide gave us all berries from some plant that smelled like citronella that acted as a natural mosquito repellant
• We saw a plant with a flower that looked like lips- this was to attract hummingbirds!
• We learned about Monkey Tail, a large, edible fern-like plant that has branches that look just like monkey tails
• OUr tour included a  view of many orchids, including the world’s smallest “alien orchids”. We also learned that the trees in the cloud forest must support not only themselves, but up to another one ton of vegetation. The additional weight comes from many plants including vines, strangler figs, orchids, lichen and moss that grow on them, and mean these trees are entire ecosystems all on their own!

I have no idea what most of the plants were called- our guide gave us the colloquial names, “Ice-Cream Bean”, “Angelina Jolie Plant”, “Poor Man’s Umbrella” but it was fun and very interesting anyway. Mid-way through our first bridge Nick spotted a large branch on the next hill moving- howler monkeys! We watched 3 or 4 of them play in the trees for a while (Nick was immediately offered a job as a tour guide based on his monkey spotting eyes!). A few bridges later our guide started shaking a tree and talking to it… at first we just thought he was nuts, but then, ever so slowly a head peeked out and we got our second view of a sloth! She didn’t appreciate being woken up during the day and clearly was not in the mood to have her picture taken. However, one lady in our group managed to get a great shot of our sleepy little sloth friend which she kindly shared with us! We learned that one of the reasons the sloths blend in so well with the trees is their fur which grows algae and makes them very tree colored.

 

After our hike, we went up a gondola to the top of one of the mountains. The gondola took us over the forest and even though it was cloudy we managed to get an ever so tiny glimpse of the Nicoya Gulf. On a clear day I imagine you could see forever from that gondola! We were enjoying our trip and the breathtaking views when a sudden gust of wind hit our gondola! We started swinging back and forth as it got windier and windier- not a pleasant feeling that high off the ground! A guide in the gondola in front of us yelled down to us “this is the Continental Divide, the winds from the Caribbean and the winds from the Pacific are clashing here, that’s why it is so windy- don’t worry this is normal!”. Normal or not, it was a little nervewracking! We got to the top and enjoyed hot chocolate, stunning views, clouds and continuous, high powered winds! Though we got many good pictures from our trip, it is almost impossible to accurately capture the beauty, the magnificence and the sheer size of everything we saw.

We enjoyed an awesome dinner at the Tree House Restaurant with Aunt Pant and Beth before they left in the morning to La Fortuna. Since it was their last night here we decided to splurge and order several desserts and split them all four ways. We had tres leches cakes, bananas foster, banana crepes and chocolate crepes but by the time we had finished splitting and passing, everyone ended up with a sort of dessert soup- a delicious dessert soup. Yum! A great evening to cap off a fun and exciting few days with Aunt Pant and Beth.